


Christmas Lights

by chooken



Series: 12 Days of Westlife [10]
Category: Westlife
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Difficult Decisions, Extramarital Affairs, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8951077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chooken/pseuds/chooken
Summary: Kissing Shane a year ago was a painfully stupid thing to do.
Now, sat in front of Shane's house a few nights before Christmas, it's all Nicky wants in the world.
Inspired by Christmas Lights, by Coldplay.





	

****Nicky pulls his knees to his chest in the darkness, a hand reaching out to turn up the heater. Coloured lights are dancing on the windshield, painting the hood in reds and greens and golds. The whole street is lit up. His own had been too, sparkling like stars in the darkness.

A desolate rain has started to fall about an hour ago, just before he'd parked. Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's getting older, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. Not really. Not in the way it usually does. The season is usually his favourite, feeling like a switch is flipped on the first of December and suddenly everything is tinsel and baubles, a giddy excitement starting to trickle into his stomach every time a window opens on the advent calendar they keep on the mantel.

He'd felt like that last year, when he'd kissed Shane. A stupid thing to do. Painfully idiotic. He'd known it was a mistake the moment it had happened. Both of them in relationships, both tipsy, though not tipsy enough for it to be an excuse. Not that there could be an excuse. He'd kissed Shane.

Shane had... kissed him back.

Just the once. Slow and soft, lips parting and Nicky wishing that there had been mistletoe. Something to write this off as a joke, or at least to blame the whole thing on. But fingers had been weaving into his hair, and Nicky hadn't been able to get a breath, not when he was tilting his head, feeling the Christmas excitement fizz into a different sort of excitement altogether.

It had parted. Shane had been bright red. Nicky had felt so pale he didn't know how he'd stayed on his feet. Their foreheads had leaned together, hands winding carefully together, like even though they weren't kissing there was no way they could separate yet. He'd needed Shane's touch. Craved it. Has craved it ever since.

A lot has changed in a year.

Furtive looks. Secret smiles. Feeling fingers slide against his skin and a mouth purse into every crease and fold of him. Catching each others gaze and being struck with barely contained giggles, dancing hazel eyes that would darken and sweeten when Nicky slipped into his bed at night.

Silly, probably. Dangerous. They'd written it off as a fling, said it was time to put a stop to it. They're both married. Maybe it's just being on the road. Proximity and loneliness. Maybe it doesn't have to mean anything.

It means so much Nicky didn't know how he manages to breathe sometime. Love, stoppering him up. Plugged into every piece of him until all he can feel is full, full up of Shane and the way he makes Nicky feel. Flickering and floating, a chandelier of hope. A glass jar full of glitter, swirling and eddying. For Shane.

“I love you,” he'd said. And again and again, until he couldn't remember a time he hadn't. Nicky thinks, sometimes, that he'd loved Shane from the first. Before they'd even met. That he'll love him after, and forever.

“I love you too,” Shane had whispered back, quiet and trembling like he'd been afraid of it. Then more steady: “I love you.”

“Forever,” Nicky had said. Shane had nodded quietly, and nuzzled into his shoulder, let Nicky hold him. “I want...” He'd taken a deep breath. “This. I want this. I don't want anything else. Not any more. I...”

“What do you want to do?” Shane had asked. Nicky had swallowed, and held him tighter.

Now he's sat at the road, waiting. There's nowhere else to go. There's no way to make it right, what he's done. Apologies and explanations are a pretty song, but there's no way to sing them in tune, not in a way Georgina will ever want to hear. Her tears were awful. Nicky had cried with her, a bit, felt selfish for doing so, knowing that a few trickles of saltwater aren't even the surface of her anger and loss. They have a life. Had a life.

He wants to forgive himself. Wants Shane to do it for him. Hold him in close and say that it's okay, that he did the right thing. That they've both done the right thing. That following your own heart isn't selfish. That, even if they're both the complete bastards Nicky suspects they are, at least they're doing it together. That even though they'll have to explain it over and over again, to the lads and their families and probably the world, eventually, Shane will be holding his hand and shielding him from the barbs of their accusations.

That Nicky will shield him in return.

The front door opens, pale yellow and plain in the tangle of blinking colour. Closes just as quickly. Nicky knows the shape of him.

He feels his heart speed up as the Shane-shape gets closer, until it's pounding a jackhammer against his ribs. When the door clicks open Nicky thinks it might shoot out of his chest.

Shane slides in. Nicky can smell him. Cinammon and a swept hearth, tangy like fresh snow.

Something is wrong.

Shane tilts his chin when Nicky leans in, dodging the kiss. Nicky's hammering heart goes still.

“Nicky, I'm...” He hesitates, gives Nicky a look like he knows Nicky's heart is already breaking, that any explanation now is meaningless. A hand cups his cheek, soft and a little calloused on the curve of his jaw. “I'm sorry.”

“Shane...” The coloured lights blink across Shane's face, a shattered kaleidoscope. Nicky can't make the words.

“She...” Shane takes a deep breath, shuddering. “She told me today. Nicky she's... we're pregnant.”

Nicky wants to cover his mouth. Wants to wipe away his own helpless tears. He can't move. Their foreheads lean together. He can't pull away.

“But...”

“I'm sorry.” He begins to chew his lip, the stressed, throughtful little habit he gets sometimes, when he's trying to work through something bigger than him. “I always wanted kids, and...”

“You don't love her.”

“I've always loved her,” Shane murmurs. “We could... we could have a good life, you know? We got along, we could be good parents. We could...” He trails off, as if sensing that Nicky can't listen to the words any longer without going mad. “It's not like the way I love you.”

“Is that supposed to make things better?” Nicky croaks.

“No.” Shane's thumb wipes away a tear. Another one replaces it. Nicky is heaving, doesn't know how to stop. “Babe, I...”

“Please,” Nicky sobs. “Please. Just because she's pregnant it doesn't mean...”

“It does. For me, it does.” Shane's right, probably. He's always been that person. Family first, responsibility, self-sacrifice. Nicky had wanted to think that was himself as well, once upon a time. He doesn't know who else he is, anymore, if he isn't Shane's. “It's my baby, Nicky. I can't just...” His voice breaks. Nicky is already broken.

“No. Shane...”

“We have to stop.” Shane's already made the decision, Nicky can see it. “I'm sorry, Nicky.”

“Shane...”

“I love you,” Shane says firmly. “Maybe one day we can be friends again. It can go back to...”

“But...”

“...the way it was,” Shane finishes. “In the new year, we'll talk about it, okay? We can figure out boundaries, make sure we can work together.” He's detached now. Nicky feels like he's being addressed, read shattering news from a cue-card. “I have to go back in. She's calling her parents, but after that we're going to watch a movie.”

The kiss is soft. Chaste. It lingers on Nicky's mouth when Shane pulls away, tasting of heartbreak. Shane's eyes are full of tears. Nicky gulps out a handful of his own, a stuttering judder. Shane pulls him into a hug. He smells the same, of cinammon and a swept hearth and fresh snow.

“I love you,” Nicky whispers.

“I love you too,” Shane says. “I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do. I tried.”

Nicky feels a swell of deja vu, and realises he's said almost the same words to Georgina, not two hours before.

Shane lets go. Climbs from the car, Nicky's hand still groping uselessly at his sleeve until the door closes carefully and he's forced to pull it back.

Shane walks back up the path, without a look back.

Nicky sits behind the wheel of the car, feet pulled up onto the seat. Outside, Christmas lights blink red and green through the darkness, shining off the fresh tears spilling down his cheeks.

 


End file.
